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Showing posts with label Humorous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humorous. Show all posts

Liberal Whiplash

This was just too funny to not post. From an editorial about Obama's shifting policies:
"If next week he named Dick Cheney as his running-mate and revealed that he spends his spare time drilling for oil in wildlife habitats, the only surprise would be that it took him so long.

Of course there's nothing much new in what the senator has done. In the lexicon of modern American politics, it's called a pivot. You campaign hard to the party's extreme in the primary election, where the base voters tend to be. Then, when the nomination is secure and there are no more idealists to be humoured, you pivot back to the centre. The only difference is that in Mr Obama's case the pivot is so hard and so fast that the entire Democratic Party is suffering from whiplash...."

Now THAT's change you can believe in!

I Am Canadian

In honor of my friend Dan and all the other inhabitants of the land up North, Happy Canada Day!

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Fun Finds from Bits and Pieces

Ponderables:
1. The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
2. Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
3. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you probably don’t have any sense at all.
4. Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?
7. Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
8. Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?
9. Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.
10. No one has more driving ambition than the boy who wants to buy a car.
11. There are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.
12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. It could be a right number.
13. No one ever says “It’s only a game” when his team is winning.
14. I’ve reached the age where the happy hour is a nap.
15. Be careful reading the fine print. There’s no way you’re going to like it.
16. The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
17. Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have thousands of OLD LADIES running around with tattoos? (And RAP music will be the Golden Oldies!)
18. Money can’t buy happiness — but somehow it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than in a Yugo.
19. After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

This has been around for a while, but it’s interesting. The “rules” say the first and last letters should be correct, but that’s not necessarily so with three letter words. You can still read them OK too.

Speaking "Democrat"

OK, I found this humorous, but it really makes me wonder how productive this is and who paid the kinkos bill for those fancy charts. Is this really what we want our elected officials spending their time and our Congressional efforts on?

I Might Have a Clinical Disorder...

...called internet addiction. I may not be alone, however, according to this article:
" Early research into the subject found highly educated, socially awkward men were the most likely sufferers but more recent work suggests it is now more of a problem for middle-aged women who are spending hours at home on their computers."
After reviewing the symptoms, though, I think I can safely rule myself out. But very interesting development in this world of ours.

Why I'm Voting Democrat

This article explains it best.

New Poll: Chidren Don't Want Health Care!

Breaking News! This should put a new wrinkle in the Dems socialist agenda.

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton

Reading this book about Saint Thomas Aquinas by GKC was an odd experience for me. First, I was reading about a man whom I knew very little about, which gave me a great perspective. Some actually consider this book the best book about Aquinas to be written. But what made this truly odd was that I possibly thought as much about GKC as I did Aquinas as I read. GKC has such a brilliant mind, and thus, writing style, that I had to refrain from highlighting every sentence. To learn a fact about one man while admiring, and being amazed by, the man writing about the man is a unique encounter for me. Hopefully in the following quotes you will see what I mean.

Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).

I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:

About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.

"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).

"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).

"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).

"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).

"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).

"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).

"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).

St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).

"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).

"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).

About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).

"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).

"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).

"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).

"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).

Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).

About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).

About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.

About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).

"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.

GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).

About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).

"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).

About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).

About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).

About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).

"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).

"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).

About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).

"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?

"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).

"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).

"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).

Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).

E-MASQL8

Here's a great post about a very funny ad:

Speaking of Obama and McCain

Interesting post on Between Two Worlds:

George Will in Newsweek:

On Obama: "Obama's words mesmerize a nation accustomed to leaders who routinely use words with antic indifference to their accuracy."

On McCain: "If he really opposes torture, he will take pity on the public and master the use of a teleprompter."

A List of Insults

… And notice - not one four letter word in the bunch…!!!

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:
She said, ”If you were my husband I’d give you poison,”
He replied, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

A Member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.”
“That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”

“He had delusions of adequacy.” - Walter Kerr

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” - Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” - Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” - Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” – Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” - Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I now.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” - Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” - Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.” - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” - Winston Churchill, in response.

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” - John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” – Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” - Paul Keating

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” - Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” - Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” - Thomas Brackett Reed

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” – Charles, Count Talleyrand

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” - Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on t?” – Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” - Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” - Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

“He has all of the morals of a dog in heat.” - Unknown Source - (about a previous president.)

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” - Billy Wilder

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening but this wasn’t it.” - Groucho Marx

Thanks Bits and Pieces

Nutrition and Health

Here is a funny post from "Sandy's Thoughts":

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health.
It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

The Difference Between the Candidates

From Bits and Pieces:

NO Soliciting

So that's how they play?!!

"Good Times..." from a friend

Here is a great post from my friend Jeremy. I can relate to every word and thought you might get some insight into my world by reading about his. Made me laugh.

Get 'er Done...

...anyway you can!

So, I was traveling this weekend to/from Phoenix and found this sign at the beginning of the security screening line at Phoenix's airport. Generally, signs indicate a policy; policies are created for common issues that effect a large portion of an organization; sometimes they are even reactionary to a few instances (like everyone having to take off their shoes because one guy tried to hide explosives in his shoes). With this in mind, what do you think TSA was dealing with when they sent this off to the printers?



No TIRES? And exactly how many 3 oz bottles of shampoo would you need to fill in order to have sufficient "Engine Additive" for a NASCAR race? Just curious.

Blog Comments

If there was only one reason to love the internet (and blogs in particular), it would have to be the ability to pool so many witty people in one location. The video was interesting, if you are curious about robot technology, but the comments section had me in tears! Watch about 30 seconds of the video just so you know what they are talking about, but then scroll down and have a chuckle. Here are a few of my favorites:

"why are they building something that moves like a horse? Dude, just use horses!"

"Am I the only one who had a fleeting moment of pity when the guy kicks it? Oh, and if I saw that thing coming toward me in the woods, I’d run like hell."

"That “ice recovery” was more than impressive. I would have been looking up at the clear blue trying to remember my name and rubbing the huge goose egg on the back of my head."

"I want to see it lift up its back leg and pee napalm on a terrorist."

"I’ve seen the future, and it walks like a rented mule."

Dancing Walrus

If only all the other walruses could see him now! Just imagine what heaven will be like when we can actually choreograph large scale dance routines with all the animals!
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I Hope Too!

From the WSJ today:

Yes, We Can!
We got a kick out of this letter to the editor of the Journal Times of Racine, Wis. (third letter):

I agree with Kim Morrison that Barack Obama would be a great president. I have hope that he can provide free health insurance for everyone.
I have hope that he can bring our soldiers home and make the world a safer place. I have hope that he can protect Americans from poverty by printing more money at the mints.
And, I have hope that he can make me a taller, more attractive, wealthier person, immune to all illnesses. The best part is that all of these will be accomplished at absolutely no cost to me.
Some skeptics would say that he can't do these things because he hasn't had enough leadership experience, foreign policy experience, or government experience. Some would say that Obama can't provide for all our needs without doubling taxes. And, some would say that he hasn't provided one piece of a specific plan to reach these goals.
Well, to those people I ask, "Where is your hope?"
All these years I've been creating accomplishments and gatherine [sic] experience to list on my resume. From now on, I'll just list my hopes and plans. All that work was so unnecessary.
Angie Smucker
Racine

Of course, whether this is hilarious or frightening depends on whether you think it was meant to be taken seriously. Our guess is it wasn't, but then again, Obama has said, "False hopes? There's no such thing." Let us pray that we are right to be cynical.

I laughed until I cried...

... watching John Pinette's "I'm Starving!" tonight. I saw it at the video store and thought, why not, I'm in the mood to laugh. There are more clips on youtube if you're intrigued.

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